Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor implied. If you could repeat previously discredited memes or steer the conversation into irrelevant, off topic discussions, it would be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.

You’re not supposed to notice that. Small government proponents are apparently the least self-sufficient and would starve to death if they they had their own way. We would save money by giving them 0 tax liability and 0 tax benefit.

No, it’s in every other government and non government statistic that reports on these things telling us basically the same thing. You’re not telling us that this is the first time you’ve seen something like this is it?

“Per Capita” is also a somewhat misleading measure. For example, let’s assume we move everybody out of, say Nevada. Now the population is zero.

We still need to move people and goods THROUGH NV. So, the interstates, rail beds, etc. have to be maintained, as do all the other things that government subsidizes, power lines, pipes, etc. Hoover Dam. All the other money you get from the Feds for some regulation or another, whether you want it or not

Point being, each state has a base requirement that has nothing to do with the size of the population.

Sorry, all. It’s just that every few weeks or so, I get fed up with being bullshat from all directions. I’ll feel better in a bit, once the Kool Aid takes effect.

It’s saying that the number of jobs gained due to one Fed handout or another wasn’t 2 million, it was more like 600K, and even that’s probably wrong. OK. Right or wrong…

It’s buried inside the business section, not on the front page. It’s titled, Voros: New hire tax credit offers incentive, transparency — implying that whatever it’s about is a good thing, as in, “well, we f**ked it up the last time, but this time it will be all better.”

madman and bergsten – I think the answer as to “why” is that 1. they are very poor states and 2. they have very powerful senators (Alaska until recently) who know how to push the pork home. Overlay a map of per capita GDP for each state and I wouldn’t be surprised if they match up fairly closely.

#2 is the answer. I don’t think ND, SD, VA and AK are necessarily poor states.

Short sided powerful idiots. Fuck industry/business, we will get rich by having a military installation. Just like Durbin touting that how housing the Guantanamo bay prisoners in IL will create so many high paying jobs for IL. I mean that’s the level of intellect you get from our elected leaders.

You wouldn’t be surprised that the CC Times is still in business if you lived here. I live in Walnut Creek and everyone on my block gets it. Both dems and repugs. Mainly for local news, events, advertiesments, etc.

As for DC. Yes it is high, but when I lived there years ago, the justification was always that since the federal gov’t didn’t pay any property taxes on all the property there and the fact that the gov’t is not a revenue generating business that paid income taxes on its income, then the federal largess was to replace that.

Ah yes, my lovely home state of New Jersey leads the way again. “Trenton makes, the world takes”. The state with the highest taxes in the nation gets the least amount of benefit from them, not only does the state give us the shaft, so does the Federal Government.

Lugnut, i fully expect this statistic to be leveraged by Dobbs when he runs in 2012. I’ll hazard a guess he’s going to wipe his rear end with Menendez before this is over. Forgive me if I don’t shed a tear for a guy who’s done next to nothing for the state of NJ>

This graph is the best evidence yet that Red State voters do vote their self-interest.

It is blue state residents in high income cities such as Boston, NYC and Philadelphia who are paying the highest marginal tax rates and whose taxes are subsidizing lower income but still middle class red state residents.

Self-interest is all about getting more for less and Red State residents have the formula figured out.

The JOB of Senators is to represent their State. The JOB of Congressmen (“Congress-people?”) is to represent their Constituency. Of course, they are voting their self-interest, that’s what they are there for — representin’.

If the “others” are getting more pork per capita than your representatives get, you need new representatives.

You don’t like what them thar “red” states are getting, move there, turn them “blue” and feast away.

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About Barry Ritholtz

Ritholtz has been observing capital markets with a critical eye for 20 years. With a background in math & sciences and a law school degree, he is not your typical Wall St. persona. He left Law for Finance, working as a trader, researcher and strategist before graduating to asset managementRead More...

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